Stillbirth data

FOI Reference: FOI/2022/4353

You asked

Mortality numbers for all babies stillborn, or having died within 28 days of birth, for each of the last five years, up to and including the most recently available figures for England and Wales

I am not requesting dates or birth/death, sex or cause of death, or any other information that could otherwise identify any deceased baby.

We said

Thank you for your enquiry.

Data on stillbirths can be found in our recent Births in England and Wales publication. The latest available data is for 2021 which was published on 9th August 2022. The number of still births from 1927 to 2021 is available in table 1 of the dataset. Stillbirths by place of usual residence is available in table 3.

Number of Stillbirths

Please note that final figures for January to August 2022 will not be available until summer 2023. Provisional data would be based on birth notifications and as such would not be directly comparable with other birth statistics derived using birth registrations.

If the above does not meet your needs, then users can request bespoke analysis using birth notifications data. The analysis would be subject to legal frameworks, disclosure control, resources and agreements of costs under the ONS Charging policy where appropriate. If you would like to discuss further or obtain a quote for this work, which is out with the Freedom of Information Act please contact the HALE Customer Services team on Health.Data@ons.gov.uk.

Child and Infant deaths

We publish deaths in infancy as part of our Child and infant mortality in England and Wales - Office for National Statistics (ons.gov.uk). The latest available data is for 2019, with 2020 analysis due to for release in early 2023. The tables cover births occurring in 2019 where the birth registration records have been successfully linked to their corresponding birth notifications records. These records have been linked to death registrations for babies who died before their first birthday to enable analysis of risk factors and demographic characteristics collected at birth registration.

Table 4 contains infant deaths including gestational age at birth for the following categories.

Infant deaths (under 1 year) at various ages are defined as:

• Early neonatal – deaths under 7 days

• Perinatal – Stillbirths and early neonatal deaths

• Late neonatal – deaths between 7 and 27 days

• Neonatal – deaths under 28 days

• Postneonatal – deaths between 28 days and 1 year

If you require further information, please contact Health.Data@ons.gov.uk.